


turn you to the new religion

by attheborder



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Class Differences, Coming Untouched, Heavy-handed metaphors, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Oblivious Irving, Praise Kink, Telescope Polishing, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:14:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26965012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: “Do you polish your telescope often, Lieutenant?”
Relationships: Lt John Irving/Sgt Solomon Tozer
Comments: 30
Kudos: 78





	turn you to the new religion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trill_gutterbug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/gifts).



It does not do to be idle. If one cannot sleep—if the possibility of rest is as distant as it is for John Irving, despite the late hour—then one must take to activity. Find something to occupy the mind, so that the body may find peace.

He had already spent more time than usual with his Bible and his prayer-book; but this exertion had done nothing to soothe him, and the longer he lies awake in his cot the more his imagination is apt to wander to darker and more dismal places. 

A glint of gold catches his eye in the dimness of his quarters. His telescope, lying halfway out of its case on his desk. He had been showing it off to some of the mates that morning, demonstrating its extensions and magnifications, and noticed in passing that it was in need of cleaning. 

The watch below are all asleep; footfalls above him remind him that Hodgson and Hornby are up on deck, overseeing _Terror_ ’s passage through the oval-shaped floes that have begun to collect in threatening patterns about its bow. 

He pulls on his trousers and waistcoat—not bothering with his uniform jacket, nor his boots— and slips down the passageway. In the silent, empty wardroom, he sets the telescope down on the grand oak table and begins the process of disassembling it, part by part. 

The brass collars twist apart from the draw-tubes; the relay lenses and shutters lay themselves out in neat rows; the housing rings complete the constellation. It is like the world itself, in miniature: each element with an ordained part to play, working together to increase the harmony of the whole. Without proper maintenance—without the spiritual equivalent of the salt and vinegar he uses to scrub away at the brass—a soul can become just as tarnished as a telescope. It is harsh, astringent: but it does its duty, and allows one to see clearly. 

After nearly an hour of satisfying labor, Irving has the telescope screwed all back together, excepting the eyepiece, which he’s giving one last buffing with his hand-cloth. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a silhouette darken the doorway, and looks up. 

“Oh,” he says. “Hello, Sergeant.” 

He wonders, for a moment, if Tozer has come to pilfer some drink from the unguarded decanter, sitting on the sideboard next to the silver service, but dismisses that thought out of hand. The sergeant is an upstanding sort, not one to sneak about or, God forbid, steal. 

Why, just this morning he’d been at Irving’s side on deck, assisting him in rousting some of the more lackadaisical hands from an idle clutch near the mizzen, where they’d been gossiping instead of manning the halliards. With his rifle in hand and his dominant stride it had only taken a word from him—less, a glance, even!—until the men once again were hauling purposefully on the lines. Irving had not even needed to shout. 

Tozer clears his throat. “Do you polish your telescope often, Lieutenant?” 

Irving sighs. “Not as often as I ought,” he admits. He holds the extended barrel up to the light, towards Tozer. “You can see here—as much as I scratch away, some of the brass remains discolored.” 

“It’s a big one, you’ve got there,” Tozer says. He leans against the wardroom wall, looking far more at home than he ought to against the dark, handsome wood paneling. 

“Oh—yes, quite,” says Irving. “Perhaps a bit larger than I deserve. It is an instrument befitting a captain—that is what the friend who gave it to me said. He was being optimistic, I think. In truth, I find I often hardly know what to do with it.” 

“I could think of a few things.” 

“I have no doubt you could,” Irving replies, with an encouraging smile. The fellow probably has his mind on hunting parties, or perhaps spying on his fellow Marines on the deck of the _Erebus,_ now trailing nearly a league behind _Terror_ since the injury to its propeller. Marines are never at a loss for ideas for leisure—if Irving remembers correctly, it had been Tozer and his men who had set up the games of cricket and football that had so entertained the crew on Beechey Island this winter last. 

Something about this situation seems to be amusing the sergeant, though Irving cannot imagine what it is. Perhaps, he thinks, dizzy with sudden hope, it might be that Tozer had not expected to find Irving so personable, so welcoming, at this strange hour. Well—he’ll show him! 

“Would you take a drink, sergeant?” Irving asks eagerly.

Companionship—that is what he requires tonight, to put him at ease. On previous commissions he had never gotten along with the Marines; but on what ship has there ever been anyone like Tozer? He is the sort of man the Royal Navy is better off for having in its ranks, Irving can freely admit. Brave, loyal, hard-working—perhaps not educated, nor very intelligent, but a fine specimen all the same. 

A Marine of Tozer’s rank does not dine in the wardroom, but on Irving’s previous commission as lieutenant there had been a Captain of the Marines with a face as red as his jacket, who had dined with the ship’s commander and his officers. Irving imagines Tozer in that man’s place—taking a fine supper at this very table, instead of grog and hardtack in the galley. What a delight he would be! What stories he might tell, what texture and flair he might add to the dreariness that characterizes near every meal aboard _Terror!_

Irving has no doubt the sergeant would be capable of rising to the occasion, able to tamp down the tendencies towards blasphemy and vulgarity that so many men and Marines aboard this ship are afflicted with. He is capable of great discipline, that much Irving knows. 

Tozer is eyeing the decanter now, and seems on the verge of accepting Irving’s invitation. Then the bell sounds—eight sharp tones to indicate the start of the morning watch. 

“That’s me needed up on deck,” Tozer says, straightening up. “Apologies, sir.” 

Irving wishes he could stay. They’d been getting along so swimmingly!

“Here, Sergeant—!” Before he quite knows what he is doing, he is screwing the eyepiece back onto the telescope, collapsing the entire device (smoothly and easily, he notes with satisfaction), and pressing it into Tozer’s hands. “Take this,” he says. “You can return it to me in the morning.” 

Tozer smiles. Not a sarcastic smirk of barely guarded impertinency, nor a deferent look of mandated respect, but a genuine smile, one that lends Tozer’s rugged countenance an almost angelic aspect. 

Warmth fills Irving at the sight, buoys him up as if he were a paper-lantern. “Actually,” he amends, “why don’t you keep it, for now? It will lend your night watches a—a scientific quality. I will pass the word for you, when I am in need of it returned to me.”

“You’ll pass the word, sir?” Tozer repeats slowly. Irving’s fingers are still wrapped around his, atop the barrel of the telescope. 

“Indeed I shall!” chirps Irving, and gives Tozer’s hand a firm few encouraging pats. “Off with you now, Sergeant. Duty calls.” 

  
  


***

Aching from hours of hard work, Irving wants nothing more than to sleep. There will be more to do tomorrow—more sawing, more heaving, more warping; endless backbreaking labor just to bring the ship a scant few yards forward in the unyielding ice. 

His throat is sore from shouting at the men. Possibly he should have been kinder: everyone was exhausted, after days of increasingly futile work to break through the pack, Irving included.

He had been grateful for the Marines, standing guard close by. Just knowing they were near, led by the never-tiring Sergeant Tozer, had spurred Irving on to deliver his utmost authority on behalf of the expedition. He thought they made a rather good team. 

This general line of thought recalls to him how peaceably he’d slept, after that evening earlier in the month spent cleaning his telescope and conversing with the Sergeant. He could do with a rest like that now, before the ice-breaking starts up in earnest again in the morning. 

So now, as the middle watch begins, he summons Mr. Gibson, and asks that he pass the word for Sergeant Tozer.

“Tell him I would like my telescope returned,” he says. “As promptly as possible. He can find me in the wardroom.” 

Gibson nods and scuttles off, and Irving takes himself and his cleaning supplies to the empty wardroom, of late the scene of yet another dreary supper with only Lieutenant Hodgson’s poor attempts at emulating Commander Fitzjames for their entertainment.

Before he can even seat himself at the table, company arrives. “There you are, sir,” says Tozer, shutting the wardroom door behind him. “Surprised you’re not abed. It was a long day, and you worked very hard.” 

“I was having trouble sleeping,” admits Irving. 

“Has there been word from the Captain?” asks Tozer. “Is it true we’re to be frozen in, before we reach the mainland?” He seems genuinely concerned. 

“We will not,” says Irving firmly. “If we trust in the Lord, and pray for our deliverance, then surely we will be guided to safety.” 

“Hm.” Tozer grunts—or perhaps it is a laugh. Either way it is a noise that Irving finds charming, despite himself. He thinks that perhaps in Tozer’s impolitic lower-class manner it is the simplicity that appeals to him, the easiness of it: the man is clearly unburdened by the sorts of complicated worries that pervade the men of command. 

He doesn’t wish to sully that almost Edenic innocence; indeed, he wishes he could somehow share in it. But perhaps a glimpse into Irving’s state of mind is just what Tozer needs, in order to view Irving as not just an officer, but a man, just like him. A friend. 

“In truth,” says Irving with a sigh, “yes, I do worry. That is why I asked for you to return my telescope. I find that cleaning it helps me relax.” 

“Here it is, then, sir,” says Tozer. From inside his pocket he pulls the telescope. 

“Did you—get good use out of it,” says Irving. He does not reach for it; he is reluctant to bridge the distance between them by extending a hand, for then the telescope will be his again, and Tozer will have no cause to stay. 

“Don’t worry,” Tozer says, rolling the telescope around in his hands and inspecting it. Large hands, yes, working-man's hands, but not dirty, nor damaged. In fact they look rather soft. “I was careful with it. Kept it very safe. No new scratches, see?” 

“Thank you.” At last, Irving compels himself to reach out and take hold of the telescope—but Tozer, strangely, does not let it go. “Sergeant—!” Irving exclaims, shocked. When he tugs hard at the barrel, he brings Tozer along with it, until the Marine is standing inches from him. 

“You can stop playing the innocent now, Lieutenant,” Tozer says, his voice gone all rough and gravelly in a way that sets something awful alight inside Irving. “You knew exactly what you were doing.” 

Irving closes his eyes, holding back a cry of outrage, but he does not let go of the telescope. The _telescope_ —oh, his dear Malcolm, what would he say to see it playing a role in such a temptation? Ten years now since they parted ways and no matter how hard he tries to hold the memory of Malcom’s face in his mind, every time he returns to it, it has grown fainter, more abstract. When he thinks of him now it is like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands. But when he tries anyway, recalling their last meeting, in order to lend himself strength, he sees only Tozer in Malcolm’s place, striding through Cambridge, handing him the gift of a spyglass, gleaming gold in the sunlight. 

It is the most horrible thing. To be embraced by Tozer, in the way Malcolm once embraced him—the men are opposites! There could not be two more different sorts, and yet the way Irving feels towards them is of a kind—!

He opens his eyes—meets Tozer’s, meaning to denounce him, push him away—but he hesitates, and in that instant, Tozer has him backed up against the wardroom wall, broad hands at his waist, moving his head beside Irving’s so that the bristles of his neatly kept whiskers tickle at Irving’s ear.

He has one wide leg between Irving’s thighs and is pressing it up, a simple movement that rapidly becomes unbearable, as Irving finds himself grinding against it, unable to control himself.

“That’s it, there you are,” says Tozer, sounding pleased, “knew you wanted it, Christ, how’d you wait this long before calling me down?”

It does not feel like being dragged down to Hell. Though Tozer wears red he is no devil—there is no harshness in the way he handles Irving. In the hand that still shares the telescope with Irving he brings his fingers round, thumbing at Irving’s knuckles with unbearable gentleness. 

“Don’t cry, now,” says Tozer. “You’re doing so well.” 

The words go right to Irving’s prick; oh, when had been the last time someone told him that? Captain Crozier has never been generous with praise—certainly none of the men under his watch had ever done so much as thank him for keeping them on the path to righteousness, for making sure the worst of the Captain’s caprice was tempered before it reached them! 

A glint in Tozer’s eyes, like lightning. 

“How about that?” he says. A pause, then: “Lieutenant Irving, out there on the ice today, you were tremendous. All those men, following your orders—fit for a captain, you are, sir.” 

A wretched sound escapes Irving’s throat.

“Stay still, now,” Tozer says, sounding altogether far too satisfied. He removes the hand pressing Irving against the wall and goes for the button of his trousers, removing from his smallclothes a prick already red and heavy.

Irving closes his eyes again immediately, guarding himself against the sight, but the _sounds,_ goodness gracious, the sounds of Tozer working at himself, flesh and fabric and each lecherous huff of Tozer’s breath, all battering insistently at Irving’s ears. 

“Ready?” says Tozer, when Irving’s eyes flicker open. “I am. Just say the word, sir.” 

“You can’t mean to—” Irving cannot make himself speak the words. _Bugger me. Ravish me. Drag me into sin._ “Violate the Articles,” he finishes, weakly. 

“Course not,” Tozer says, more offended than he has any right to be. “Who d’you think I am?” 

Irving is confused. “Then what—” 

“Don’t you know,” says Tozer, leaning in, “there are other ways? Doesn’t count if nothing goes in.”

This revelation twists at Irving’s mind. He can’t possibly imagine what _ways_ —if there are such things, surely they would have occurred to him—at night, when he cannot sleep—

“Really?”

“Trust me, Lieutenant.” His confidence is easy. Simple. 

Naturally Tozer is no sodomite—naturally Irving could never find himself with genuine affection for such a sinner—but still. Irving mustn’t give an inch, for that way lies damnation.

“Well?” says Tozer, at length. “You do need sleep, sir. If you're to continue doing such a wonderful job, out there on the ice... And this will help better than any cleaning.” 

“Please,” says Irving, and really, truly, he means to add a _no_ there—possibly more than one—but it refuses to come out, catching in his throat like a fish-bone, painful until he swallows it down. 

“Yes, sir,” says Tozer. He draws away, taking the telescope with him, and sets it down on the sideboard, beside the silver. From the table he lifts the bottle of oil Irving had set out next to his hand-cloth. 

As if in a dream Irving finds himself suddenly with his own trousers down and his shirttails hefted up into his fist, revealing his own prick, that organ which has never served him other than to test his will, to torture him nightly—but Tozer has no such preconceived notions of its utter uselessness and lets out an approving whistle at the sight. 

Then Tozer’s hand is on his shoulder, turning him round to face the wall. “Legs together,” Tozer says, and Irving obeys. 

The first thrust of Tozer’s prick between his thighs hits him like the report of a musket, driving him forward into the wall with a gasp at the sudden shock. He can _feel_ it, the thickness of it, the slick width driving against his skin, at once utterly alien and blindingly overwhelming. 

“Christ, that’s it,” says Tozer, “You’re a bloody marvel, Irving—” 

The words—their coarseness, their enthusiasm—effect an astonishing addition to the unreal feeling of Tozer’s prick working itself back and forth. It puts Irving in a state beyond description. 

Who knew those most unexceptional of places—his inner thighs, the stretch of skin between his stones and his fundament—could be the source of such sensation? Clearly, Tozer knew—Irving can’t bear to think, now, what else he might know, what else he might dare to share. 

Barely three or four more thrusts with Tozer’s animal breath at his neck and without warning he spends, shaking, against the wall, his seed dripping down the wood, smearing across his stomach and thighs. 

Were Tozer to suddenly step away now, Irving might collapse on jellied legs—but the Marine still holds himself against Irving, all that well-trained weight pinning him firmly upright as he moves steadily behind. 

Soon there’s a slam, next to Irving’s head on the wall: he opens his eyes in time to watch Tozer’s fingers curl urgently at the paneling there. Thinking of those fingers on his telescope, extending it to its full length, Irving lets out a shaky cry, which excites the fervor of Tozer’s movements, and the heaviness of his exhalations, until after a few more urgent thrusts Irving feels Tozer’s spend join his own, sticky where it slides down his skin. 

There is a triumphant feeling of accomplishment, followed at once by a delayed rush of overwhelming shame. A few moments later the great weight lifts away, and Irving is turned back around, his head tipping woozily back against the wall with a soft thud. 

Tozer’s face swims into focus. “Well done, sir, I suppose,” he says, and then nods to Irving’s drooping, spent prick. “But I was looking forward to that.” 

He turns away and Irving steels himself to be left alone—he never meant to let Tozer down, he would not dream to disappoint, surely the praise he’d been lavished with was not a lie—but instead Tozer merely fetches up Irving’s hand-cloth from the table and hands it kindly over. 

“Should you ever want to lend out your... precious instrument again, sir,” Tozer says, restoring his uniform, “you know where to find me.” 

Irving can only manage a minuscule nod; Tozer tugs his forelock and leaves Irving to his cleaning-up. 

Some minutes later Irving staggers down the passageway and into his berth, where he falls asleep almost immediately, telescope cradled closely to his heart.

*** 

**Author's Note:**

> working title for this fic was "irving use your telescope" but i decided to go with a different jack's mannequin lyric because it's 2020 and i do what i want 
> 
> i'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/areyougonnabe) and [tumblr!](http://areyougonnabe.tumblr.com)


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